Trial Of The Century
by Vanillusion
Summary: Harry loves Sirius. Sirius loves Harry. But will the Ministry of Magic tear them apart because of their age difference? Can true love withstand the Trial of the Century? (R for violence, allusions to rape, adult content) [CHAPTER *6* UP!]
1. Do Not Go Gently

Chapter I : Do Not Go Gently  
  
[colloquial title : when Harry met Sirius ]  
  
When the hospital had telephoned the Dursley's of number four Privet Drive, and told them that their nephew Harry Potter had been brought in by emergency medical units less than an hour before, the nurse who made the call was a little more than surprised by their outward lack of concern when she told them of his injuries.  
  
Harry could remember hearing the phone call from where he lay; could remember the nurse's girlish voice as she explained to his aunt and uncle, in the most delicate of medical terminology, how he'd been essentially beaten and raped by an "undetermined number of attackers." He could remember thinking to himself that she needn't have bothered calling them, that they wouldn't care anyway, which turned out in the end to be true. He could remember lying beneath the fluorescent lights and shaking from head to toe, with needles in his arms and monitors beeping away somewhere behind his head, wishing that someone would just kill him, or at least hold his hand for a little while. He'd only been ten years old then; alone and in pain, and the memories of all that had happened to him that day had haunted him in nightmares nearly every time he closed his eyes since.  
  
That was, until Harry met Sirius.  
  
The first time he'd awoken crying, Sirius had held him in his arms for what seemed like hours - something no one had ever done before - kissing him and soothing him and stroking his hair until he could breath again, could close his eyes without the fear welling up in his stomach. Harry had told him everything that night; not just the terror of that one single day five years before, but the entire, pain riddled tale of his life with the Dursley's. The days of darkness beneath the stairs; of starving, crying, waiting to die... the years without kindness or affection or sometimes even acknowledgment of his existence, the daily torture of Dudley and his friends and the hopeless desperation of being alone - somewhere inside him a dam gave way, and all of it had come pouring out into the daylight for the first time in his life. And Sirius had listened to him. Sirius had let him sob out everything against his shoulder, never once interrupting him, and Sirius understood. Sirius loved him.  
  
When at last Harry fell back to sleep, cradled safely against his godfather's chest, the nightmares had not come.  
  
And they'd stayed away for over a year now; never daring to show their faces under the roof he shared with Sirius, within the walls of their warm little house. Though it gave him a start at times to wake up in his bed at Hogwarts - to roll over expecting the familiar warmth and weight beside him, snapping awake when it wasn't there - the Fear didn't come upon him anymore, not with the comforting consciousness of his dormitory around him and his Home not far away. Sometimes, if he couldn't fall asleep, he would crawl into bed with Ron, who'd let him drift off beside him and hold his hand. In little more than twelve months, a lifetimes worth of suffering had been pushed to the side in Harry, to make way for the love that had eluded him for so long. Halfway through his fifth year at Hogwarts, his godfather's name had finally been cleared, and the happiness Harry had found in the magical world had become complete their newfound home together.   
  
  
  
Now it seemed, however, that all of it was about to change.  
  
Harry had never thought twice about the difference of age between Sirius and himself. Love had never come to him in any form before; and now it had been given to him in its completion in one, single person. Never once had he questioned it; Sirius was beautiful in his eyes, was everything he could ever ask for - caretaker, companion, confidant, lover... Not even in the recesses of his subconscious had he ever thought of any of it as wrong; for how *could* it be wrong?   
  
That very question echoed in Harry's head as he climbed the steps of the great Ministry building. 'How can this be wrong? And how can this be happening?'   
  
It seemed that over half the magical community of Britain was gathered here today, outside the building where the Trial of the Century (as advertised by Daily Prophet headlines four weeks in a row) was scheduled to take place. Harry had been dreading this day for three months now - ever since the Ministry of Magic had taken up suit against his godfather.  
  
...'unlawful and immoral relations with a minor'... 'failure to provide proper living environment'... 'statutory rape and sodomy in the first'... the list of accusations against Sirius had gone on and on. Harry would never forget the look on his godfathers face as he read over the scroll a surly looking screech owl had delivered through the window of their cozy little kitchen; the way the color drained away from his cheekbones, the wide-eyed disbelief, the tremor in his hand as he put his arm around Harry and let him read for himself.   
  
"They can't be serious...?" Harry had asked, drawing up close to Sirius and pulling the scroll from his hands. He shoved his glasses up hard on the bridge of his nose... reread every word over again, as if they would change the second time 'round.  
  
"I've never known the Ministry to be the joking sort, I'm afraid..", Sirius muttered quietly, and his expression said that there was more he wanted to voice, but his words trailed off into silence, and more words would not seem to come in their place. Perhaps there were no words for either of them, in that moment - only a sinking sensation in the pits of two stomachs... a distinct lack of oxygen to two sets of lungs, and two bodies pressed close, bound tightly in one another's arms in the soft lit little kitchen, by the dying light of day... two souls made one in love, unable to comprehend the curse on this single piece of parchment. And the last light died beyond the windows and the Scottish hillside beyond that... and finally, Harry whispered, "...so what does this mean?"  
  
"It means that they want to take you away from me and haul me back to prison, that's what it means," Sirius said; his voice quiet, but the anger seeped into his words. He released Harry, striding across the kitchen with the summons in hand and tossing it in the waste bin. "It means the Ministry wants to make a mockery of me yet again." Dark eyes blazing, he lit a cigarette with the sharp *snap* of an old-fashioned cigarette lighter. Bluish-grey smoke curled before his face, pooled above his head in the half-light. "It means they're going to fuck us over, that what it means Harry."  
  
  
  
"You're my legal guardian! My *parents* put me in your care, if anything ever happened to them. It was practically the last thing they did!." Harry could hear his own voice rising outside his head, but inside he was numb, detached as of then.   
  
"That precisely the point in the end, Harry." Sirius's voice was flat, toneless, bitter. "They don't think it's 'proper' that your legal guardian has you sleeping in his bed with him." He flicked his cigarette in the general direction of the ashtray on the kitchen table, crossed his arms over his chest.  
  
Harry found himself rising out of the chair in which he'd been sitting; without thinking, he snatched Sirius's pack of Rothman's off the table and lit one himself. The smoke was bitter, nearly stale - Sirius didn't smoke cigarettes all that copiously nowadays, with him in the house. Mostly when he was out in the garage, working on his motorbike, or polishing his giant, imported Monte Carlo with its beast like engine and louder-than-the-devil stereo... that was when he smoked. Harry shook his head sharply, exhaled slowly to clear his mind. "Its not like you *force* me or anything," he said finally, "...it's my choice. I don't see how its any of their business."  
  
"You know that, and I know that... but as far as the Ministry is concerned, you're not old enough to make that choice for yourself yet," Sirius told him, his tone of voice making it quite clear that he found this bit of information as absurd as Harry did. He reached over and plucked the half smoked cigarette from Harry's fingers, snubbing it out in the Wimbourne Wasps ashtray. "You shouldn't be smoking," and there was the parent in his voice. It made Harry want to cry.  
  
"So what are they going to do with me? What are they going to do to *you*?" he whispered, letting Sirius take the cigarette from him without argument. The room was growing blurry before him, and he tried to blink back the tears in his eyes before they spilled over, but it was no good, and so Harry simply shut them tight behind his glasses. And a moment later, Sirius's arms were around him; Sirius's fingers were stroking his hair.   
  
"I don't know, baby....", he whispered into his godson's hair. "I don't know yet. But I'm not letting you go without a devil of a fight, I can promise you that."   
  
"They can't do this to us," Harry whispered, squeezing his eyes shut tighter and leaning into his godfather's chest as the full weight of their predicament came crashing down upon him at last. Sirius ran a few slender fingers over his face, lifted Harry's chin with them, cupped his jaw gently with his palm.  
  
"It'll be alright, Harry..." he whispered, removing the glasses from the boy's green-on-green eyes, wiping the tears from his face gently with his thumb. Harry had a tendency to shy from hands around his eyes; but this was Sirius, this was his Everything.. this was the one person in whom he knew he could trust without question. These were the hands he knew best, the hands that knew *him* best, knew every inch of him by memory from endlessly tracing his bones in the dark... and as Sirius drew him up to kiss him, Harry could believe him when he told him that it would be alright. Everything's alright. Just kiss me.  
  
And kiss him he did; one arm winding protectively around Harry's back and the other cradling his jaw as gently as one might touch a glass figurine. Harry could feel the soft, sure play of fingers up his spine beneath the thin cotton of his tee shirt; he could taste the taste of endless summer on his lover's tongue, feel the pulse of adrenaline that came from moments like these. Right now, he didn't give a good goddamn about the Ministry or anything they had to say. All he cared about was This; this moment, this person, this feeling of finally being complete. Sirius loves me. Maybe no one else does, but he always will.  
  
Harry couldn't completely remember just how they came to rest on the couch in the living room; he only remembered the kisses and the touches, then the warmth of the fire blazing away behind the hearth and the feel of the soft, worn cushions against his back. He never worried about what happened to his shirt. He only knew that Sirius's hands were on him; Sirius's tongue was grazing his neck, his lips tracing an electric path around his collarbones. Harry let his head drop back against the pillows of the sofa, his breath quickening in his chest, catching in his throat now and then when those sacred fingers brushed just the right spot. With a complacent little whimper, he wound his fingers in Sirius's hair, let them trail down the back of his neck; but he found his wrists entrapped by warm, gentle fingers... bound softly in one strong hand and coaxed above his head with butterfly kisses. He did not mind when Sirius restrained him like this - there was never any cruelty or force to it, only loving patience and tenderness - and finding himself helpless to his lover's hands, he could not repress an involuntary shiver, an arch of his spine beneath the reassuring weight above him, as Sirius bound his wrists with god-only-knew-what. Something soft and unobtrusive and attached only with the aid of a few safety pins to the arm of the sofa; symbolic more than functional, for Harry felt no need to struggle.  
  
"Sirius..." Harry found his godfather's name on his lips, somewhere between a plea and a prayer and no more than a whisper. And Sirius was smiling down at him; the gentle, brilliant smile that Harry had fallen in love with, full of wisdom and adoration. Harry lifted his head to catch those lips with his own, to nudge them open with his tongue and taste the love on them, to fall into that mouth and drown in these kisses. His efforts were received with passion, and he found himself pushed back down against the pillows; his head swimming, body alive with electric currents. He could hear his own soft moans as Sirius nipped at his skin, grazed his nails over the tender flesh of his abdomen. And then those fingers were at his belt; taking their time, seeming to savor each step of the intimate process, until they had loosened constrictions enough to creep downward past the waistband of his boxers. At the same time, the other five fingers smoothed Harry's damp hair back from his forehead; and Sirius kissed him gently, whispered "I love you," in his ear.  
  
Harry was in Heaven.  
  
And Heaven had the softest touch... the warmest brown eyes and the sweetest kisses. Heaven's hands were easing the last of his clothing down around his hips; Heaven's lips were trailing downward over his chest. Harry bit down on his lower lip with a gasp, let his head drop to the side against the pillows as Sirius's tongue traced the contours of the muscles in his stomach, as Sirius's teeth nipped softly at his bellybutton. For a brief moment he pulled his hands downward - but the safety pins did not give way, and Harry nearly cried out, his eyes snapping open for a moment. They'd held him down, hadn't they? When he was little, and They'd hurt him... he'd had bruises on his wrists then, when he'd gone to the hospital... bruises all over him, because They'd held him down. A spasm of the old fear shot down his spine, quick as lightening.  
  
But there was no time for the Nightmare to further haunt him now; for no one save Sirius had ever touched him like this. No one else had ever slipped such gentle fingers between his legs, coaxed his thighs apart with such delicate kisses, so thoroughly explored the most intimate parts of him and made him shiver in his own skin like this... throw back his head and cry their name with his very heart in his voice, as their mouths pushed him ever further towards the brink of ecstasy. No one could touch his soul like this, could make him feel like this, except Sirius.  
  
He didn't know how long it had been; how long he'd spent writhing and gasping beneath these sacred ministrations, how long the tears had been streaming down his face, or how long those lips and hands and tongue had taken him over body and soul. He only knew that, when it was finally over, he lay spent and shaking against the couch; his skin damp with both his sweat and his lover's, his breathing ragged. Harry tried to open his eyes, but even this was an effort. He heard Sirius rise for a moment but could not see him, and a shudder ran through him, involuntary and unwanted... yes, They'd definitely held him down six years ago; lots of different hands, all holding him down, clawing at him, hurting him... but before he'd pulled himself free of his restraints on his own, Sirius was kissing the tears from his face, releasing his wrists and drawing him into his arms... and Harry was safe again.  
  
He snuggled close into Sirius's embrace, enfolded in warm arms and a soft flannel blanket to keep the chill off, and let Sirius stroke his hair, smooth his fingers over Harry's face. He was too tired to think of the Nightmares or the cursed mail that had come today; of the Fear, or the Sickness that had come with the summons... too tired now to think past the moment, now; and in this moment he was happy, complete... safe with him whom he loved, and who loved him back.  
  
* *  
  
  
  
  
  
He woke up in Sirius's arms.  
  
They were still in the living room, curled up and entangled in an intricate puzzle of limbs and hair and blankets on the couch; last night's fire reduced to glowing embers in the fireplace and the soft light of morning creeping through the windowpanes, across the hardwood floors and woven throw rugs. Harry had no memory of having dreamed at all. He woke up from a heavy, tranquil sleep; woke up slowly, sliding into consciousness long before he opened his eyes and lifted his head an inch or so from the pillows. Instinctively, he felt around on the side table for his glasses - found them, miraculously enough, and shoved them blearily onto his face, half wondering how they'd made their way into the living room. As the familiar surroundings came into focus, so did the vivid details of the evening before, and the unbelievable news that had led up to this little escapade on the couch... left them sleeping here so peacefully, trying to forget.  
  
Harry lay back again, snuggled deeper into Sirius's arms at the mere thought of it. His godfather was still asleep; his back propped against the back of the sofa, his body wrapped around Harry's in a protective embrace, his dark hair straggling across the pillows and his sharp, handsome features relaxed. As softly as he could Harry kissed his slightly parted lips - the gentlest brush of contact at first, then a bit more; and before he knew it, he was nudging Sirius's lips apart with his tongue ever-so-softly, trailing his fingers over his jawbone. With a soft, sleepy murmur, Sirius came awake beside him, or at least halfway so... enough to kiss him back and pull him closer, stretching as he did so.  
  
Things continued in this manner for a few, quiet moments, until Sirius pushed himself up on one elbow, smoothed Harry's unruly hair back off his forehead as he looked down upon him with a sleepy smile. "Go take a shower. I'll start breakfast."  
  
"Come shower with me," Harry told him, pulling him back down for another kiss. Sirius didn't protest, but when their lips parted he chuckled softly.   
  
"The purpose of a shower is to get *clean* Harry."  
  
"We can do that after!"  
  
But Sirius had already risen from the couch; stretching his long, lithe form like a large canine and padding barefoot into the kitchen, running his fingers through his long, somewhat tangled black hair. With a sigh, Harry hauled himself onto his feet as well, wrapping a blanket from the couch around his waist and letting it drag behind him across the floor. He could already hear Sirius putting the coffee on; smell the cigarette smoke wafting through to the living room, which meant that his godfather still wasn't done thinking about what had happened yesterday. Neither was Harry, really.  
  
Indeed - he found himself thinking about the summons all through his shower - replaying the previous evening like a video tape in his head as he washed his face, pondering their fates as he scrubbed the shampoo out of his hair, churning each circumstance, each possibility over and over and over again in his mind. He didn't bother getting dressed once he'd dried and brushed his teeth, shook the water out of his hair; rather he padded down to breakfast wrapped in a towel, agonizing over the idea of going back to Privet Drive.  
  
"You're all ready for the day, now, aren't you?" Sirius teased, as Harry collapsed into a chair at the kitchen table, naked from the waist up and looking decidedly worried. Sirius, despite his age, had the air of a perpetual college student about him; it was in the music on the kitchen radio - some raucous hardcore band from the United States... it was in the haze of cigarette smoke around his head, in the way he wore his jeans enticingly low on his hips (even if they *were* about 18 sizes too big for him) and tee shirts with the logos of skateboarding companies printed across the chests. It was in the laid back way he moved, in the freedom of his laughter, in his obsession with motorized things that went very fast... all of it. It was even in the way he cooked eggs - flipping them over in the pan with a mere flick of his wrist and catching them neatly with a suave reach across the stove. He shoveled two of them onto Harry's plate, kissing his hair as he passed by. "You forgot clothes, baby."  
  
"I didn't *forget* them," said Harry, a bit more sullenly than he had planned. "I chose to forego them." He grabbed Sirius's pack of cigarettes and lit one for the second time in twenty-four hours, noting that he was developing quite a habit for a nonsmoker.   
  
Sirius, who was now preparing a batch of bacon, didn't scold him this time for it... rather, he himself lit one as well - further testament to the fact, though he acted as if nothing were wrong, that he was as tightly wound as Harry. He only said "Eat your eggs," and started the toast. Harry sipped at his orange juice and leveled his eyes on his godfather's back.  
  
"What are we going to do, Sirius....?" he asked quietly.  
  
"Don't know," Sirius replied in a matter-of-fact tone, spearing the bacon with a fork and piling it onto a plate. "We're going to show up in London on the day they've told us, and we're going to go to court."  
  
"Aren't you going to get a lawyer?"  
  
"S'pose I'll have to, won't I?" Sirius's voice was light, convivial, as if he were speaking about getting milk from the grocer's. He set the plate of bacon and toast down on the table, but didn't seat himself - instead, he started another pot of coffee. Harry guessed he must have gone through the first one while he was in the shower.  
  
"Well... shouldn't we have witnesses or something? I mean, this is court, Sirius.. we have to be ready!." Harry raised his voice a little to be heard over the coffee maker and the radio, trying to sound stern in an attempt to get Sirius to take the situation a bit more seriously, but ending up sounding more panicked than anything else.  
  
Sirius chuckled wryly under his breath. "We didn't kill anyone, Harry. And anyway - witnesses of what?"  
  
"You know what I'm trying to say," Harry said darkly. "I don't know anything about court, I guess. But you know how trials go. You--"  
  
"--Do I?" Sirius asked, and the chuckle was darker still this time.  
  
"Well, you've been to trial over Pettigrew and all..."  
  
"You actually think they gave me a trial?" Sirius stopped what he was doing; set the coffee cups down on the counter and turned to face Harry. "They didn't even *question* me. They brought me straight to Azkaban, and there they left me to rot in hell for twelve long years of my life. Twelve years. I was twenty-two years old, Harry. It may sound old to you now, but twenty-two years old is nothing at all. You're still a kid at twenty-two."  
  
Harry only watched his godfather in silence for a few moments, lost for words.. and after a moment Sirius poured the coffee, with a sharp drag to his cigarette, and sat down at the table opposite him. For a minute or two, neither of them said anything... but then Sirius said quietly, "You're right. I'll get a lawyer by tomorrow."  
  
"Thank you," whispered Harry, and started in on his eggs.  
  
Breakfast was short and quiet; both Harry and Sirius were lost in their own wandering thoughts, and only the tinny sound of the radio kept the kitchen out of silence. Harry found that he didn't have much of an appetite, what with his mind swirling at eighty kilometers per hour, but he managed to force down most of what was on his plate nonetheless. How many more mornings will I be able to eat breakfast with him, now....?, he thought to himself, gazing across the table at his godfather.   
  
Sirius caught the boy looking at him; shot him an easy grin across the table. "Is there something in my teeth?" he asked him; and Harry, feeling as though he would cry, had to laugh anyway... laugh because he loved this man, laughed because Sirius could always make him laugh...  
  
Without thinking about it, Harry found himself rising from his seat, going to Sirius and dropping to his knees beside his chair. "I love you so much," he whispered, burying his face against his godfather's chest and wrapping his arms around his waist, sighing as Sirius pulled him close and kissed his hair. Harry loved the way he smelled - like cologne and aftershave and the faint essence of cigarette smoke; like incense and summer nights, like love itself, if love had a scent. "Why are they doing this to us, Sirius...? I mean, why do they *care*?"  
  
"I suppose they've made it their business simply because neither of us are exactly what you'd call low profile figures," Sirius said quietly. " I doubt they would bother if no one knew you as The Boy Who Lived, and me as a symbol of Voldemort reign."  
  
"But you're innocent, for crying out loud!" Harry moaned in exasperation, sitting back on his haunches, but entwining his fingers with his godfather's. "You didn't kill anyone!"  
  
"There are still those out there who refuse to believe that," said Sirius. His dark eyes were sad.  
  
"Its not fair." Harry didn't care how childish it sounded; it was the truth. He knew he was pouting, and he didn't care about that, either. With a soft, resigned sigh, Sirius tugged him closer again by his hand, pulling him up into his lap.   
  
"I know it's not fair. Nothing is fair. But we'll get by this, Harry, I promise you. I'm not giving you up, and I don't care what I have to do..." Sirius tilted Harry's chin to face him. "You have to trust me. I don't know what they've got in store for us, anymore than you do. But I'm going to keep us together somehow, in the end, you hear me?"   
  
Harry took his lover's face with both hands; kissed him as deeply and powerfully as he ever had during the height of passion, swinging one leg over Sirius's lap to straddle him and running his hands covetously over that long, silky black hair. "I believe you," Harry breathed, their lips a mere hairs width apart, "I'll believe anything you tell me and I always will and I love you. I love you, and if you say it, then its true. You wouldn't lie to me."  
  
"Never..." Sirius whispered, and then their lips met again, and their tongues danced and hands touched, clasped... roamed each other's bodies, laid claim with their caressed. And they were One; one heart, one soul, one strength against the world. In this moment, it seemed nothing could touch them save for each other, that nothing could come between them...  
  
"Well..... I do believe we've come at a bad time, gentlemen."  
  
Lucius Malfoy.  
  
He was standing in the kitchen doorway - a cold, gleaming figure dressed all in black, with sharp, feral features and a cruel smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Harry didn't recognize any of the others with him; they were all men from the Ministry, he supposed - maybe half a dozen of them, following Lucius through the door, their footsteps heavy and muted in the little kitchen. They didn't bother to shut the door behind them. Lucius was holding a sheaf of parchment in one hand, but he was unarmed - it was the others who had their wands out, and Harry didn't want to think about why. He knew why they were here, however, and he drew back wide-eyed against Sirius.  
  
"Jesus Christ," breathed Sirius.  
  
Lucius's eyebrows drew together in disdain. "Please don't use that name around me. It's not as if Jesus is going to come and save you, now is it Black?" He had begun to advance on them slowly, as if timing each step he took. His smile made Harry shiver and look away - he couldn't describe what he saw in the mans eyes, he only knew it made something inside him wither and curl up like a flower beneath a match flame. He wrapped his arms tighter around Sirius's neck; but with a few reassuring, whispered words and a kiss to his forehead, Sirius rose and set Harry to his own feet, getting himself between Lucius and his godson.  
  
"I should have guessed you'd have a hand in all of this," he hissed through gritted teeth at the pale man. Those slender hands Harry so loved were knotted into fists; knuckles white with rage. It was seldom that he had seen Sirius angry, since that first day in the Shrieking Shack when Harry was still convinced that his godfather had killed his parents. Now he knew better - but he had seen that day how potentially dangerous Sirius's rage could be. He hoped Malfoy got a huge dose of it.   
  
"Come now, Mister Black - it was *hardly* in my plans to have to retrieve your... ehm...." Lucius gave Harry a lewd, crucial once-over with his eyes, "...godson." Funny, how much this man could make the word 'godson' sound like 'dirty little bitch'. Harry settled for sinking into a kitchen chair, as sinking through the floor was not an option. The lead weight that had rested in the pit of his stomach since the previous evening seemed to have been joined by ten of its brothers in recent moments. A low growl rose in the back of Sirius's throat.  
  
"You're not taking him anywhere," he hissed.  
  
Malfoy's eyebrows rose in a smooth, clean arch. "Oh, but I'm afraid I am. Very specific orders, you see, its all right here..." He handed the sheaf of parchment to Sirius, who nearly devoured them with his eyes. And as he did, the color drained away from those chiseled cheekbones, his dark eyes widened hectically, and Harry knew it was true. This was it.  
  
"I'm not going anywhere with you," he said stubbornly, forcing his voice to remain steady and defiant. "Dumbledore gave Arthur and Molly Weasley charge over me if anything ever happened to Sirius. If anyone's taking me anywhere, it's going to be them." He could go with the Weasleys. They loved Sirius as much as he did - none of *them* thought it was wrong, what they were to one another. They'd let Harry and Sirius share a bed when they'd gone to stay with them over the summer. They understood. But the idea of Lucius Malfoy and six strange, scary looking men taking him god-knows-where made him shudder, made the panic rise in his stomach.  
  
"I don't believe you've been given a choice in the matter, have you Potter?" sneered Lucius, and Harry swallowed heavily. Sirius sidestepped to place himself between the two of them once again. The entourage was beginning to throw both Harry and Sirius very menacing looks, and Harry could feel his godfathers panic rising as surely as his own. "You'd do best to step aside, Black. I wouldn't want to see this get ugly." Lucius's smile implied that he would like very much for exactly that to happen. Harry scooted his chair backwards across the floor with his heels.   
  
He knew very well that his godfather was unarmed, and the men accompanying Lucius had trained their wands on him now. Malfoy himself stepped around Sirius, reaching for Harry. "Don't make this harder on yourself than you have to, Potter," he said, as cold fingers seized Harry's wrist. Harry jerked his hand back with all his might, but Lucius was much stronger than he was, and he couldn't contain a little yelp of pain as his wrist was wrenched violently in the man's grasp.  
  
A split second later there was a loud *crack*, and Lucius Malfoy careened forwards into his lap like a rag doll, releasing his hand. Harry leapt to his feet; before he knew it he had his back pressed into the corner some ten feet away, and Sirius was standing over Malfoy - the other man's blood on his knuckles from where they'd struck his mouth. For one slow-motion moment, no one moved, no one spoke. The only sound was of Sirius's ragged breathing, and Lucius's hands scraping over the floor as he hauled himself to his feet. And then, all at once, there was a blast of white light, a scream, and then they had Sirius - five of the men struggling to restrain him as he railed against their efforts. "GET---YOUR---FUCKING---HANDS---OFF---ME!!" he roared, as Lucius and his one remaining cohort seized Harry by either arm, wrenching him out of the corner. Harry could hear spells being uttered, hear the snapping of wands and Sirius choking on his own breath, but he'd pressed his eyes closed when the hands had touched him. He couldn't see them drag Sirius, half unconscious, from the back door, or the look on Malfoy's face. He could only feel the hands on him, dragging him forwards blindly - hear his own screams echoing in his ears and the sun on his face as they pulled him outside. Harry was very small, but that did not mean he was weak - it was taking the two men quite a bit of effort to restrain him, he could feel that, and with everything he had he threw his weight backwards, digging his heels into the ground. And then something cold and stinging struck him hard across the mouth, and Harry tasted his own blood.  
  
"Please... at least let me get my clothes," he cried, stalling for time. He opened his eyes again, but he couldn't see Sirius or where they had taken him. If they would just let go of him for one split second, maybe he could find him. Maybe he could do *something*. Harry spit a fair amount of blood on to the back path, wrenched hopelessly against his captors once again - but he was getting tired, and his efforts had only half their strength behind them.  
  
"Shut up, Potter," snapped Lucius.  
  
The panic in Harry's stomach had bubbled over. In desperation, he whipped his head sideways, sank his teeth into the closest available flesh that wasn't his and tore as hard as he could. The wizard that did Harry did not know screamed and let go of him, and Lucius struck him hard across the face again. A flash of white light exploded at his temples, and Harry found himself falling, falling... and then he remembered no more. 


	2. Digging Up Demons

Chapter II : Digging Up Demons  
  
[ colloquial title : Push It ]   
  
iStaring down the hall again  
  
Hands are on my back again  
  
Survival is my only friend  
  
Terrified of what they've done  
  
...and I'd trade it All  
  
for just a little  
  
peace of mind.../i  
  
-tool-  
  
"...and a bruise on his face. It might not be a bad idea."  
  
"God only knows what else Black's done to him..."  
  
Vaguely, Harry was aware that there were people talking; somewhere close by people were speaking in hushed, disapproving tones - and they were speaking about his godfather. Harry forced his eyes open. It took a lot of effort, this, as though there were lead weights attached to his eyelids - and as soon as the light hit his eyes, he realized that he was best off with them shut. He couldn't really see anything besides whiteness, but piercing pain shot through Harry's head, and he buried his face in his arms to block out the light, rolled over onto his stomach.  
  
He came to note that he was lying on something very cold and very hard... something metal, in a room that echoed and smelled like disinfectant. He knew that smell. It was a hospital smell. Harry hadn't expected magical hospitals to smell like this; then again, he hadn't much expected them to smell like *anything*, because he hadn't expected to end up in one. And how could he even be sure he was *in* a hospital? He couldn't see anything. The voices nearby hadn't stopped; in fact, now one of them was addressing him.  
  
"Harry. Can you hear me, son?"  
  
Harry didn't like the owner of this voice already. He was not this man's son. "Sure can't," he muttered into his arms, hunching his shoulders a bit against the chill in the room. Somewhere off to his left there were footsteps, heavy footsteps that echoed like everything else in the room. And then there was a hand on his shoulder, and the same voice was telling him to roll over and wake up.  
  
"...You're hurt, Harry. We need to take care of you."  
  
Cautiously, Harry lifted his head up a bit, cracked one eye and peered over his arms. He couldn't see very well without his glasses... but then there was a hand, giving them to him, and as he fit them awkwardly onto his nose the room came into focus at last.   
  
This place reminded him very much of the hospital wing at Hogwarts. It had the same long, narrow design and high, arched ceiling - only there were no long rows of beds here, only steel tables on wheels, like the one he rested upon now. One or two of them had curtains set up around them, and a few others were covered in ominous looking metal instruments, rolls of gauze and parchment. Harry pushed himself up onto his elbows, then sat up in full.   
  
There were three other people here with him, that he could see. One man, a tall, thin, balding wizard with glasses - who's white robes emblazoned with a red cross denoted him as a doctor - was standing a few feet away and looking over a scroll of parchment that looked suspiciously like the one Lucius had shown up at their house with. There was a young nurse standing at his side whom Harry had not realized until now was present - he hadn't heard her speak yet. But the man peering down at him was the man that Harry did not like already, the man that had called him 'son'. He was a burly, severe looking wizard with a mustache and the dark robes of the Ministry. Harry glared at him. The man only peered down the bridge of his nose at him in a manner highly reminiscent of Professor McGonnagall - only that when Professor McGonnagall looked at him like this, it wasn't so condescending, and subsequently he didn't usually feel like punching her on the nose.  
  
"Good afternoon, Harry," the man said to him. The doctor had already advanced on him - taking his pulse, trying to shine a light in his eyes. Harry jerked his head away. It felt like someone was beating on his skull from the inside, and the light didn't help matters. "My name is Alexander Whippingbird, and I'm from the Ministry of Magic, Civil Affairs Bureau. Do you know where you are?" The man had continued as though Harry was paying full attention to him, speaking in a voice more suitable for a 6 year old than a person ten years in senior of that.   
  
"No," Harry snapped. Now the doctor was lifting his chin up, frowning as he turned his head this way and that. He ran a thumb over Harry's cheekbone, and a lick of pain shot through it to the very back of his skull. Without thinking, he batted the doctors fingers away and cupped his own hand to his face, wincing. "Ouch. Quit it."  
  
"Now, now, son, let the doctor take a look at you. We're here to *help* you, Harry, not to hurt you," said Mr. Whippingbird. "But that means you're going to have to cooperate with us. You are at St. Mungo's, and you have been taken into custody by the Ministry. We removed you from the custody of Mr. Black this morning, and we shall do everything we can to see that you recover properly from what you have suffered."  
  
"What I've suffered," Harry said through gritted teeth, "is a nice blow to the head from one of *your* members - not to mention getting dragged out of my own house like a criminal. Now get off me!" he added to the doctor; feeling a bit bad for him, but having no patience for being poked and prodded right now nonetheless.   
  
Mr. Whippingbird tsk-tsked through his teeth, shaking his head in a manner that made Harry want to throttle him. "Its all right now, Harry, you needn't cover for him any longer," - and it dawned on him what the man was implying.   
  
"Sirius does *NOT* hit me! He's never laid a hand on me!!" he bellowed. Almost at once, Harry realized his mistake. Of course Sirius had 'laid a hand' on him. These people knew exactly where Sirius's hands had been. That's why they'd dragged him here, wasn't it? Mr. Whippingbird regarded him sternly again.  
  
"You must understand, Harry, that we know precisely the opposite is true. But it's alright. I understand why you're frightened to implicate him. Just let the doctors do their jobs, and we'll have proof enough. You may not even have to testify."  
  
Harry leapt off the examining table, somehow managing to remember he was still wearing nothing but a bath towel and having the good sense to clutch it around his waist as he did so. "Sirius doesn't hurt me, and he never will. He loves me and I love him and you're completely daft if you think I'm going to testify against him! Why did you bring me here?" He was yelling now, his voice echoing in the long, arched room. He yanked his wrist away from the doctor so sharply that they gave up on trying to manhandle him back onto the examining table for a few moments.  
  
"We've brought you here for your own protection, as well as to... determine the amount of damage... that Black has done to you. This is for your own good," said Whippingbird, obviously uncomfortable as he struggled for a delicate phrasing. But the cold fist that clenched itself around Harry's stomach knew exactly what he meant, nevertheless; **We've brought you here to go over every inch of you with a fine tooth comb, inside and out, so we know for sure he's fucking you. No evidence like physical evidence, is there?**  
  
He didn't realize that he was shaking, or that - for the second time in twenty-four hours, he had backed himself into a corner. He was only aware of the smell of hospitals, the cold plaster against his back, and the flood of nightmare memories; ghosts, drifting out of dusty corners and forgotten rooms in his mind to haunt him. The way the sun had shone through the trees that long ago afternoon, dappling the pavement as he'd walked home from school. And then, out of nowhere, the Hands upon him, dragging him into the van.   
  
He'd never seen Their faces. They had kissed at him, touched him, forced Themselves upon him in every manner possible and passed him around like a flask of good whiskey - but he had never seen even one of Their faces. They had all been wearing hoods or masks; and though he would never forget Their voices, Their hands, Their horrors, he would never know what They had looked like. But They'd all had mean eyes and rough fingers, and They had held him down, and he had lost consciousness before They were done with him. The next thing he remembered was waking up in the hospital - and this hospital smelled exactly like that one - and realizing that the hands were not gone from him. But this time, it had been the doctors; and though Harry had cried, had begged them not to touch him, they had persevered, claiming that it was for his own good. And the doctors had held him down, too - held him still until he exhausted himself in sobbing struggling against their hands; until he had only been able to lie there... lie there beneath the fluorescent lights, with needles in his arms and monitors beeping away behind his head, and wishing that someone would just kill him...  
  
"HARRY!" The voice was loud yet gentle; female, as it were.  
  
Harry opened his eyes.   
  
He was still here, still at St Mungo's; but he had tears streaming down his face, his knuckles were white, clenched shut in fists of panic, and his throat was raw as though from screaming. Only he did not remember crying, or screaming; only sinking into the memories while trying to reason. Harry shook his head and flexed his fingers, drew his forearm across his eyes to wipe the tears away.   
  
The doctor was talking to Mr. Whippingbird in hushed tones, and Mr. Whippingbird was regarding Harry with a mixture of disturbance and concern. It was the young nurse that was speaking to him now in low, soft tones. "--you're alright, Harry, no one will touch you until you're ready. Just come sit down, dear, and relax a moment..." Her voice was melodic, and Harry made himself concentrate on it - steadying himself against the wall before he followed her back to a chair nearby. A moment later, the doctor approached him in a rather cautious manner. Harry swallowed hard, forcing the lingering sense of helpless panic back down into his stomach. i You are sixteen years old. No one has hurt you for nearly half your life now. Keep this up, though, and they're liable to think Sirius tortures you day in and day out./i The thought made him rational again, pulled him together as nothing else could, even the sweet little nurse that now stood protectively beside his chair.  
  
"I'm sorry," he said, clearing his throat. "I have no idea what happened." He forced himself to make eye contact with the doctor, and found his eyes unthreatening. The waves of panic ebbed a bit inside him.  
  
"N-no need to apologize, my d-d-dear boy," said the doctor. He had a stutter, which didn't win him any points with Harry, as it reminded him all too much of Quirrell. "But I n-need to ask you a few questions b-b-before we p-proceed." He pulled up a chair near Harry's, shuffling his papers on his clipboard as Whippingbird looked on sternly. Harry pushed his hair out of his eyes, then leaned foreword and rested his elbows on his knees, fixing the doctor with what he hoped appeared to be a tired, heavy stare.   
  
"Fine."  
  
"Ah. Yes, well, a-alright then...." The doctor straightened his glasses, shuffled his clipboard. He didn't meet Harry's eyes, only read from his sheaf of parchment. "C-can you tell me how l-l-long you have been intimate with M-Mr Black?"  
  
"Eight months and change," Harry said steadily, staring straight at the man. He was making the doctor nervous now, he could feel it, and it gave him some satisfaction to know this. *He* wouldn't be the only one squirming in his seat; all of this was making him more than uncomfortable, and he felt it was only fair that he return the dubious favor.   
  
"Er... yes. And have you ever f-f-felt uncomfortable in the r-relationship...?"  
  
*Absurd.* Harry's stare became unwittingly all the more drilling for the indignance the question raised him. By nature, he was not one to 'kiss and tell', or so they say - what was between he and Sirius, stayed between he and Sirius, and discussion of it with any third party made him extremely self-conscious. And here was this man that he didn't even *know*, drilling into the most intimate part of his life. But just knowing that these people had taken him away from Sirius gave him the strength to stare the doctor down, gave him the conviction to lace his voice with and the serenity to keep his voice steady and even.   
  
"Never. Not a bit." He was satisfied with the way his own voice sounded when he answered - clear and direct and honest, leaving no room for argument for Mr. Whippingbird, who looked clearly dissatisfied with his lack of hesitancy.   
  
"A-a-and to w-w-w-what extent, e-exactly, have you b-b-been intimate with M-Mr B-Black?" The doctor's stutter was getting worse and worse. He didn't seem to want to ask Harry these questions any more than Harry wanted to answer them. Indeed, the man's bald spot was turning decidedly red, and he wouldn't look anyone in the eye, especially not Harry. Harry couldn't feel too satisfied, however; he felt himself turning red with the question as well.  
  
"What do you mean, to what extent?" he snapped, hiding his humiliation behind an offensive assault of venom laced words and a steely glare. "We're in love. We sleep in the same bed. Anything beyond that is our business alone. What do you and your wife do with the shades down, hmm? What's the extent of *your* intimacy?" Harry had practically risen to his feet, his fists clenched at his sides.  
  
"That is enough!" bellowed Whippingbird. He stormed foreword from his vantage point beyond the examining table, turning very red in the face and reminding Harry a great deal of Uncle Vernon when he was angry. Involuntarily, Harry flinched as the larger man advanced up upon him, stopping only feet from where he sat, and without realizing it he shrunk back in his chair. "I will tolerate no more of this insolence! You treat us as though we were the enemy! Enough! We need certain information from you, we need to examine you, and that's the end of it right there. You were asked to cooperate, and you've done nothing of the sort. I'll have no more of this childish nonsense," Mr. Whippingbird rounded briefly on the young nurse, "--fetch a bottle of Vertiaserum. Doctor, I advise you send for assistance before you examine him. It's not likely to go smoothly, at this point." He shot Harry a contemptuous glare. "You've brought it on yourself, son."  
  
"I am NOT your son!" Harry retorted, but instinct born of his life with the Dursley's kept him rooted to his chair. "And as far as I'm concerned - you *are* the enemy! You people are ruining our lives, and I'll be damned if I'm going to help you convict my godfather of crimes against *me*!"  
  
"Your relationship with Black is *completely* inappropriate!" sputtered Whippingbird, "Even *beyond* the fact that your sexual persuasion is an abomination - you are sixteen years old! He is twenty years in your senior! Not only is it highly immoral, it is highly illegal! You are still a minor, Mr. Potter - and Sirius Black has never given this Ministry anything but trouble!" He was very close to Harry now, nearly leaning over him, and Harry shrank back in the chair. Whipping bird exhaled heavily through his nose like an angry bull, ruffling his mustache. Without another word, he spun on one foot and stalked out of the huge room, leaving Harry alone with the doctor - who only looked at him with apprehension, as if he had a dirty job ahead of him. Harry shuddered.  
  
It wasn't long until Whippingbird returned - and he had cronies now; four men dressed in white medics robes. The thin, balding doctor rose, straightened his papers for the umpteenth time, and finally met Harry's eyes. It was a look of sympathy. "C-come on, Harry," he said quietly, "I'll make this a-as easy on you as I c-c-can...".   
  
And he gestured to the steel examination table.  
  
Harry swallowed hard, squared his shoulders, and stood up. His eyes moved around the room - seven people in all; Whippingbird and the doctor and the young nurse, and the four mediwizards, one of whom was a female. "Does there have to be so many people here?" His voice sounded anything but confidant in his own ears now. It sounded scared.  
  
Whippingbird only smiled a mean, oily smile, and slipped through the door. Now it was a roomful of medics, and Harry, and they were all looking straight at him. It was the young nurse that stepped foreword. "C'mon, love," she whispered, so that only he could hear, "It'll be alright. Here, hold my hand," and she took Harry's fingers in her own, squeezed them warmly. Harry took a deep breath and nodded, let her lead him over to the table. He could feel his heart pounding against his rib cage, hear it in his ears, and the last thing he wanted to do was to get on that table and let these people go over him inch by inch with their hands and their eyes; that cold, brusque, medical touch imprinted so clearly on the dark side of his mind.   
  
"Let me put that aside for you, love." The young nurse's voice sounded distant, and there was a ringing in his ears. "We'll get you something to wear after..." Harry appreciated her diplomacy, her gentle manner. He looked her; at the doctor, at the medics in the shadows, with apprehensive eyes. The knot of panic back was back, twisting itself tight in the pit of his stomach, and he couldn't swallow it back this time. Harry took another deep breath, stared at the floor as he handed her his bath towel.  
  
The table was freezing, the lamps were glaring, and Harry shut his eyes as he lay back. He barely felt the nurse smooth his hair back, but he felt her gentle hands on his shoulders. They were no comfort to him now, however - Harry knew they were there to hold him down if he struggled, and he choked back a dry, hopeless sob as the doctor's hands met his skin. Somewhere behind his head, the nurse hushed him soothingly, but it was nothing to Harry anymore - this was age old fear, a fear that only one person had ever been able to quell.  
  
And as the doctor pushed his knees apart, Harry whispered "Sirius" on the barest hint of breath, and wished that he was there to help him.  
  
**  
  
Fear.  
  
Amazing, the impact fear has upon the human psyche. Amazing, how deeply it can entrench itself into the subconscious - festering with time, becoming instinctive, sometimes all consuming. Irrational yet overpowering, it roots itself in the darkest corners of the mind, and though one may chop down the tree itself, sometimes those roots are unreachable. Fear was the one thing that Harry hated the most; and yet, for the past three hours, it was all that he felt, all that he knew.  
  
He could still feel the hands on him even now. His worst fears had come true on that examination table - the first time in six years that strange hands had touched him. He'd forced himself to stay silent through the entire procedure. And then they had fed him the Vertiaserum, and he barely remembered anything until he'd found himself lying here, on a cot in another long, thin room much like the first one. Harry couldn't even begin to think about what he had told them. He could barely think at all - his resolve had broken halfway through the examination, and he'd lain there, numbed and terrified and holding back tears until it was over. Even now, he couldn't have spoken if he wanted to. He could only lie where he was, shaking and forcing his eyes to stay open. Harry didn't want to sleep. The nightmares would come if he slept now, and so he stared into the oncoming darkness and tried not to blink.  
  
Footsteps. He heard the footsteps, coming up behind him - lots of different feet. Not again. Harry hunched his shoulders and pulled his knees closer to his chest **Just leave me alone, for Merlin's sake, please just leave me be...** He wanted nothing more than to sink through the mattress and into the floor, to hide from everyone and everything someplace that was dark and safe and quiet. He didn't think he could deal with one more personal question, with one more strange finger on one hair of his head.   
  
But the footsteps came, echoing off the arched ceilings of the place, and now there were voices. Whippingbird. Malfoy. Anita, the sweet young nurse, telling them that she would be more than happy to handle his placement case in her spare time. Not necessary. That was Whippingbird. And Malfoy's cool, smooth voice saying perfectly alright, that he'd see to these arrangements himself. A Ministry case, to be handled by the Ministry. Harry put his hands over his face.  
  
The footsteps stopped, not three feet away from his bed, though the voices had ceased moments before - and Harry felt a light pressure against the blankets at his feet. Nowhere to hide. Ever so slowly, he uncurled himself enough to take a peek at the end of the bed. Clothes. His clothes. Who had gone into his room and gotten his clothes for him?   
  
"Ministry agents have been sent to collect a portion of your possessions for you, as you won't be going home any time soon."  
  
Lucius Malfoy was standing beside his bed.  
  
Harry hated this man. A thousand-and-then-some words came to mind, a thousand venomous condemnations and hateful retorts, but the only words he manages to get past his lips were, "You hit me. Get away from me," in a small voice that sounded more plaintive than accusatory in his own ears. He recoiled to the opposite side of the bed.  
  
"I was ordered to remove you from Mr. Black's household by any means necessary. You were warned that resistance on your part would not be tolerated." Malfoy's voice was patient yet cold  
  
"It was *our* household," Harry whispered, pressing his eyes against the sting of oncoming tears and turning his face away from Lucius. "Ours. It's our *home*."  
  
"...The Ministry will be making arrangements for your placement until the beginning of term at Hogwarts," continued Lucius, as though he hadn't heard Harry's words [which he very well might not have]. "Until then, you will be remaining here at St. Mungo's."  
  
"Where's Dumbledore?" muttered Harry.  
  
"Professor Dumbledore has absolutely nothing to do with the Civil Affairs Bureau, and will not be involved in your case." Lucius couldn't keep the satisfaction out of his voice; however, no sooner had he spoken these words, than a deep, wise voice answered him from somewhere near the doorway.  
  
"Not so, Lucius."  
  
Dumbledore came 'round the curtain beside Harry's cot; a tall, thin, stately figure in royal blue robes and half-moon spectacles, his long silver hair and beard catching the torchlight. He greeted Malfoy's shocked, indignant expression with a warm smile, popping a lemon drop into his mouth and offering the bag to the blond-haired man as he spoke. "Corneilius Fudge sent word to me only an hour ago to tell me of the proceedings, and ask my aid in finding Harry here suitable guardians until school commences." Lucius stared at the older man, open mouthed, as Dumbledore took a seat on the edge of Harry's bed, offering him a lemon drop from the bag that Lucius had barely noticed. His sparkling blue eyes were kind, gentle, and they softened when Harry blinked back tears and finally swiped at them with his forearm.   
  
"Molly Weasley nearly begged me to send you straight to her; and being the pushover that I am for a woman with such fine baking skills, I could not find it in my heart to refuse her." He winked to Harry with a conspirator smile. "I do hope the arrangements are to your liking. I'd awfully hate to tell her you weren't coming. She may never honor me with her treacle fudge again!"  
  
Harry nodded and forced a weak little smile. "When can I go?" he asked.  
  
Dumbledore patted his hand, and Harry had to fight the urge to wrap his fingers around it, to cling to it the way he wanted to. "You'll be there in time for supper." 


	3. Miss You Love

Chapter III : Miss You Love  
  
[ colloquial title : Choke ]  
  
Only a matter of hours later, Harry found himself seated at The Weasleys kitchen table; unable to do more than pick at his food, despite the hunger eating away at his insides. It was more than a relief to be here at The Burrow, surrounded by Ron and his family, by friendly and familiar faces - but Harry couldn't forget that it wasn't Home, and that Sirius wasn't here. Staring down at his plate, he thought about the way this evening would have been, if today had never happened. The thought of it brought tears to his eyes for the umpteenth time that day, and Harry asked to be excused before anyone noticed and went upstairs to Ron's room.  
  
He cried as soon as he shut the door. He lay down on his camp bed with his arms folded beneath his head, and cried harder than he'd cried since They'd hurt him when he was ten. He cried for that day now; he cried for Sirius, he cried for himself - he cried because he'd lost the only person that ever loved him enough to kiss him, because he'd lost the only home he'd ever felt safe in, because he was alone again and it scared him and he didn't know what to do. He cried so hard that he didn't even hear Ron come in, or notice when he stood in the doorway for a few moments chewing on his lip. In fact it startled him so badly when Ron laid a hand on his shoulder that he whimpered and pulled away before he realized who it was.  
  
He'd never let Ron see him cry before; but when he tried to collect himself he found that he simply couldn't, and it only made him sob harder. "I'm sorry," he managed to choke, burying his face in his arms again - but Ron hushed him before he could stammer further apologies, rubbing his back through his sweaty tee shirt. He didn't say a word as Harry sobbed into his pillow, but he never left his side, either; soothing him slowly with gentle hands and understanding silence until he could barely cry another tear.  
  
"I love him so much, Ron," he whispered, unable to choke back the words before they escaped his lips and feeling foolish once they did.   
  
"He loves you too, Harry," his friend said softly, "He loves you more than anything and you know it, and I bet it kills him every bit as much as it kills you to be apart."  
  
Harry squeezed his eyes shut, locked his jaw against the roll of pain in his stomach when he thought about it, and Ron made some soft, sympathetic noise and took his hand. "And Mum and Dad and I love you too. Hell, Ginny's *wild* about you!" He laughed softly, and Harry had to smile just a little despite everything. "But I'm serious, Harry - we really do. And we're going to be here for you through all of this, I swear it."  
  
The words were nearly too much for Harry. He tightened his fingers around Ron's, unable to find words for exactly how much he'd needed to hear this very thing; clamped his teeth down on his lower lip to avoid sobbing all over again. His best friend leaned over and hugged him - something Harry had needed desperately - then smoothed his hair back from his forehead. "Try and sleep, okay? I'll be right here."  
  
Sleep was something that Harry couldn't do without much longer. He squeezed Ron's hand a little, and didn't dare to meet his eyes when he asked "Hold my hand until I'm asleep?" Ron returned the little squeeze with a gentle smile.  
  
"I was already planning on it."  
  
* * *  
  
i "Please don't do this," Harry whimpered, struggling against the hands locked like iron vices around his biceps. Laughter, cruel and low and cold all around him, and a rough hand touching his face.   
  
  
  
"Ahh, begging already? This one's going to be a screamer for sure."  
  
"A bleeder, too. He's tiny."  
  
"Who gets firsts?"  
  
"I found him, I tap him!"  
  
There were so many hands. He couldn't keep track of all of them; hands holding him still, hands on his ribs, his stomach, his thighs... hands forcing him down on his back on the hard ground, hands tearing his clothes off of him. And then there were mouths, tongues, teeth; and the hands didn't seem so bad, except for when they hit him for crying too hard. Harry couldn't see without his glasses, and it made it all the more terrifying - and now they were forcing his legs apart, pulling his knees up and back so that he lay completely exposed to those kisses and touches and bruising bites. Someone buried their face in his crotch and raked their teeth over him; another shoved a thick, calloused finger inside him roughly, a third clamped a hand down hard over his mouth when he screamed, and pulled his hair. Laughter and cruel words and the stench of sweat and cheap whiskey, the taste of blood in his mouth; Harry screamed until his voice broke and even then he screamed silently, bucking and writhing like a trapped animal beneath the body twice as large as his own, struggling to get away from the hands that pinned down his bruised hips, the fingers that forced their way inside of him with blinding pain.  
  
But it was nothing compared to the pain of actually being taken, so he found. His consciousness ebbed like the recession of a wave for a moment before sharpening unbearably. It seemed that they would rip him apart from the inside; one after another, stealing away his innocence with every thrust and blow and rake of nails across his skin... with every one of his own gasps and cries and pleas. "Stop it, God, please stop... please... no, please, God--" /i  
  
"--NO!" Harry sat bolt upright in bed with his heart pounding against his ribs, trembling so hard that he could barely draw his knees to his chest, raise his hands to his face. He could almost feel Them touching him still, hear Their laughter ringing away to nothing in the silent darkness of Ron's bedroom. And then all at once Ron was beside him; Ron was holding him, rocking him, asking him what was wrong. Harry sank into his friend's arms, shivering, and could only shake his head when his voice would not come. Too frightened to cry, he rested against Ron's shoulder and stared into the darkness, and tried to match his breathing with the other boy's to steady his heart. No one but Sirius had ever held him like this before; no one else had ever been at his side when he'd woke from The Nightmares - and had it been anyone else but his most trusted friend, Harry might not have been able to even let them touch him in this oh-so-fragile state. But it was Ron. And Ron loved him.  
  
"What is it, Harry?" Ron whispered against his ear, stroking his hair in a decidedly protective manner that made Harry snuggle closer to him instinctively.   
  
"Ron, I cant- I just cant- just stay with me, please, don't let them hurt me- "  
  
"Who? Harry..." Ron tightened his arms around his best friend, who only shook his head more as though to will the very idea away.  
  
"I cant- I don't even know- just please, Ron- "  
  
Ron laid his cheek against Harry's hair, rocking him more steadily. "Shhh, okay... okay.... no one will hurt you, I promise. Here, come lie down with me..."  
  
  
  
The sheets of Ron's bed were cool by comparison to his own, and the night breeze blew soft through the open window; and with a warm body to cuddle up against, with a shoulder to rest his head on and a heartbeat to listen to, Harry finally began to calm down.  
  
"...I'm not going to let them get away with this, Harry," Ron whispered into the darkness after a long moment. "We'll send an owl to Hermione in the morning, and the three of us will put our heads together and find a way to beat them. We'll read every book on Magical Law in Britain ever published until we find something that will get you and Sirius off the hook. And we'll testify at the trial, too."  
  
"The Trial of the Century..." mused Harry quietly, staring across Ron's chest and out the open window at the night sky.  
  
"And we're going to win it," said Ron, "I know we will." 


	4. When In Hell

Chapter IV : When In Hell  
  
[ colloquial title : bring me to life ]  
  
i now that I know what I'm without  
  
you can't just leave me  
  
breathe into me and make me real  
  
bring me  
  
to life /i  
  
He could feel himself rotting.  
  
Everything rotted in Azkaban. Everything dripped from it's own bones like flesh gone liquid. That was what his soul was doing, now; melting away from his brain and his heart in dark, acrid rivulets and pooling in his stomach as something sour, violent, wrathful. He did not transfigure. Sirius the Man knew how to Hate, and Hate would keep him alive in this place. The Dementors could feed off of your love, but they could not digest hatred.   
  
He did not love Harry, for now. He let everything the boy meant to him decay into nothing but a liquid pool of emotional energy inside of him - and then he lit a fire beneath it, and boiled it into the hatred he needed to scald those that had done this. The screams of the other prisoners were fuel for this fire, the bitter cold and pitch black of the prison spices for the brew. He could feed of all of it, now, and turn it into something that could keep him alive in this place that oozed Death from it's very walls. He had spent twelve long years perfecting this strange and horrid alchemy of the soul. Once already it had served him well. Once already it had carried him, day by lightless day, through the darkness of his incarceration.  
  
He could do it again.  
  
Clang of steel against steel. Somewhere a barred door opened and closed. The cell bars in Azkaban were wrought with spikes to keep the prisoners from rattling them - like thick metal rose stems top to bottom. Sirius had never touched them, never once. He would not feed the Dementors with hope. When in Hell, do as the demons do.  
  
Footsteps. People. Three types of people walked in Azkaban - new prisoners, morticians, and Ministry Officials. New prisoners screamed on their way in. Morticians whispered amongst themselves in cold, clinical terminology, ignoring the dripping, reeking, rotting place around them. But the Ministry Officials had the habit of walking as fast as they could through the dungeon hallways, biting their tongues and swallowing their horror for the sake of remaining pompous [or so Sirius saw it]. No screaming. No idle chatter. Ministry footsteps, he would have bet his wand.   
  
"Mr. Black...?"  
  
A bitter smile curled at the corners of his lips, but he didn't turn around. He didn't know the voice. Let them come to him. Let them screw up the guts to walk between the Dementors posted outside his doors and come right into this cramped little dungeon with him. Let them do it, if they wanted to.  
  
He could feel the unfamiliar soul shudder as it passed through his less-than-humble doorway. He could feel the Dementors take a deep breath, swallow the new happiness whole. i That's right, you bastards. Suck it up from them, too. /i A shuddering breath, somewhere behind his left shoulder, and the shifting of feet on the moldering stone floor.   
  
"Mr Black?" the voice came again, weaker this time. Hell strains even the staunchest English manners.   
  
"You were expecting Cleopatra, perhaps?"  
  
"My name is Jonathan Dove. I'm a lawyer. The Ministry-"  
  
"Sent you to represent me. Well I hope you aren't fresh out of law school, Mr. Dove. You will be representing the most hated man in all of magical Britain. You will have an easier time of it should you choose to try and win the affections of a Manticore. And if you lose this case, I will kill you."  
  
Numb silence behind him. Sirius Black turned around, and looked Jonathan Dove straight in the eyes.  
  
He was almost half a head shorter than the six-foot Sirius, and very slender, with androgynous features and very blue eyes and dark auburn hair that would have hung to his chin, had it not been slicked back to his head professionally. He wore a fine, double-breasted muggle suit of black silk beneath his dark woolen cape, complete with starched white linen shirt and dark tie. A pair of square, black framed glasses rested low on his nose. Head-to-toe professional. He was looking up at Sirius with an expression somewhere between polite and wary.  
  
"You can leave now, if you want to," Sirius told him.  
  
"Mr Black," said Dove, in a smooth, cultured tone, "I wouldn't dream of it. If I walk out of here today, you are a dead man. No one else in Europe could clear your name at this point." Those blue eyes flashed sharply behind the glasses, and he offered Sirius a most charming and confident smile. "I'm not as young as I look, either. So please - set your apprehensions aside. Your trial date has been set for one month from today. We don't have time to waste on a pissing contest right now, if you'll excuse my saying so, so I suggest we get to work."  
  
It took Sirius by surprise, this iron yet easy manner. Cause for reevaluation of the entire situation, indeed. He stood watching Dove in the thin shaft of light cast by the hall torch across the dark and reeking cell. For a moment, neither man moved.  
  
"You can't save us…"  
  
"Oh, but I can," said Dove. "I can save both of you, Mr. Black." Sparkling blue eyes in the dim torchlight. Sparkling blue eyes behind square framed glasses. Where had he seen those eyes before? "If I don't, you can kill me. How's that?"  
  
"Don't play with me.."  
  
"I don't play. You can have your wand. I'll have a legal document drawn up, if you wish. What's important right now is that you realize that you will win this case. I'll stake my life on it. But I can't help you unless you help me, you understand?"  
  
Another moment of silence, as thick and damp and heavy as the air inside Azkaban. From far down the corridor came a moan, and scream, a sob. Hissing, rattling breath of the Dementors as they passed. Sirius nodded Dove's attention to them.  
  
"You see those two? They know one's dying. They can feel it. They don't just let you die in this place. They don't just let you curl in on yourself and wither away. When they feel you start to go? They come flocking. They breathe up your death. Sometimes they don't wait for you to go on your own, either. If you cling to happy memories in those last moments? They can't resist it. They suck your soul right out of your dying body, and they swallow it whole. They let your corpse rot in the cell, sometimes, if you tasted good enough."  
  
Dove didn't flinch, didn't waver, didn't cringe from the sickness of it. He stood pristine in the sputtering flare of the torchlight, and he let Sirius bear down on him with his eyes, drill into him. He held his gaze steady. And then he said;  
  
"You would taste like shit to a Dementor. So would I. We hate too much."  
  
"… You'd better not fuck up."  
  
"I never have. I'm not going to start now. Mistakes are for people who learn slowly. Now sit down, Mr Black. We've got a lot of ground to cover."  
  
"Call me Sirius."  
  
Dove paused before lowering himself onto the cold stone bench, extended one slender hand. "Jonathan."  
  
This man was his only hope, now. Sirius shook it. "What do you need me to tell you?"  
  
They sat down, side by side, and only now did Jonathan reach for the black leather briefcase that had been sitting against the cell door since his arrival. Snapping it open in his lap, he leafed through the papers inside it, pulling out one official scroll after the next until he found what he was looking for. He held up a copy of the same cursed letter that had arrived on Sirius's doorstep not one week prior. "I trust you've read the charges?"  
  
"The summons came by owl post to my house. I've read it."  
  
"Are the charges valid?" The directness of the question nearly surprised Sirius.  
  
"It's not rape, if that's what you're talking about."  
  
"But you two are lovers."  
  
"We are." It took a monumental amount of willpower to speak of Harry without *feeling* Harry, without remembering in a way that the Dementors would find all too appealing. Sirius liked that his voice sounded dispassionate in his own ears. i You will never feed of that, you sons of bitches. I'll never give you Harry, you can be sure of it. /i  
  
"How did this come about?"  
  
"It's hard to explain…."  
  
"You're going to have to try, Sirius. I need to know everything."  
  
Sirius took a deep breath, rested his elbows on his knees and rubbed his temples, steeling himself for the long, grueling task that lay ahead, of telling the entire tale.  
  
"You see… he has these nightmares…"  
  
***  
  
"… and everything was completely stable, until we got the summons."  
  
Two daunting hours later, everything that there was to tell had been told. Now Jonathan knew how Lily and James had entrusted him to do "whatever it takes" to take care of Harry, how the boy had come to him crying in the middle of the night, begging to sleep beside him, how it had been Harry who'd initiated the romance in the relationship… how, no, he didn't think about the age difference.   
  
"He may be sixteen, Jonathan, but in many ways he isn't the child that he looks to be. In other ways, he'll never be more than that. He didn't know what love was at all until he was well into adolescence, and when he figured it out, he didn't draw any barriers through it. To Harry, Love is Love. I love him. I take care of him. He had his innocence stolen away far, far too young. He needed something to fill that void where they tore it out of him. And if that's what it takes for him to finally find a little peace in this world, then who am I to deny him? I won't lie and say that I don't desire him. It's not a selfless relationship. But do you understand what I'm telling you, Jonathan? Maybe with any other sixteen year old boy - yes, this would be entirely improper. But Harry's something altogether different."  
  
A fragile silence stretched between the two men, then; thin as paper, while one reflected and the other waited patiently. And then Jonathan said;  
  
"I understand, Sirius. I understand all too well." Flash of blue eyes in the meager torch light. "They've done you both a horrid injustice here - they really have." A brief pause, and then, "I'm going to need to speak with Harry, and well, to get his testimony. But trust me, Sirius. You'll have him back."  
  
"I really will kill you, if you fuck up, Jonathan."  
  
Jonathan Dove smiled quietly, and rose from the stone bench. "I know you will," he said. "If I doubted you, or myself, I wouldn't still be here. But you've told me the truth, all of it, and I can promise you that I won't let that go to waste. I have everything that I need, for now. I'll be back within the week, once I've spoken with Harry.  
  
And then he left Sirius alone, for he time being, in Hell. And when in Hell, do as the demons do.  
  
- to be continued - 


	5. A Game Of Pretend

Authors Notes : ...I have mixed feelings about this story, now. I am an author in mourning. As a person with their own beloved characters, I cannot imagine the suffering that it must have caused JK Rowling to have to write Sirius's final moments in Order of the Phoenix. I ask all of you not to hold his death against her; when one is the writer of original fiction, one finds themselves in a way writing *for* the characters, not bending them to our will. Rowling has only written the story the way the story goes - and as heartbroken as I am, as we are... I have no doubt in my mind that her pain is indubitably the worst. When I finished the Order of the Phoenix, I had no intentions of ever touching 'Trial' again. However... I think that now, this story needs an end. Let us set aside the tragedy for just a few last moments, and remember Sirius as we should; alive, determined, and beautiful. I will not be writing any further pieces in which Sirius still lives. What is done, is done. But for now, I will give him one last shot at life. Let the story continue.  
  
***  
  
Chapter V : A Game Of Pretend  
  
[ colloquial title : twelve ]  
  
The whole day had been one very long game of pretend.  
  
Pretending to be hungry, pretending to be listening, pretending not to worry, pretending to smile. Pretending to agree with Ron that the books Hermione had sent them were getting them closer to making a better case before the Wizangamot. Pretending that they *had* a case before the Wizangamot. Hermione's immediate reaction had been somewhere between scorn and disbelief - as far as she was concerned, Harry was over the legal age of consent in Britain, and that was that; that was, according to muggle lawmakers.   
  
Indeed, Harry had finally found one thing that the muggle world had up on the wizarding community; however, from what Mrs. Weasley had told him, the legal age of consent had been raised a year by the Ministry in 1812, after a dark wizard known as Sebastian the Sadistic had been discovered of a most disturbing penchant for keeping exactly sixteen concubine witches at all times, all sixteen years of age.   
  
He would have given all the gold in his Gringotts vault for the chance to punch old Sebastian on the nose.  
  
There didn't seem to be a bright side. Sirius was in prison, their trial date was looming, and no matter how hard he thought, Harry couldn't come up with a single thing that might be even mildly helpful in getting his godfather out of this. If Lucius Malfoy was at the helm of this operation - and Harry would have bet his want that he was - then it was going to be no simple matter of a good argument, anyway. He was by no means poor, but he severely doubted that every last knut in his vault would add up to even a tenth of the Malfoy family fortune. Malfoy could buy Sirius's guilt, and not for a second was Harry naive enough to deny this to himself.   
  
After dinner, he'd excused himself, and ascended alone to Ron's bedroom at the very top of the haphazard little house. For the tactless individual that Hermione so often made him out to be, Ron had shown a surprising amount of it in realizing that Harry needed this time to himself. He'd stayed downstairs to play a game of exploding snap with Fred and George, leaving Harry in peace to make his way, flight by flight, up the steep and winding staircase.   
  
There had to be *something* that they hadn't thought of yet - something they'd overlooked, some loophole in wizarding civil law that would let Sirius off the hook, somewhere else to place the blame...  
  
Harry stopped dead in his tracks on the top landing outside of Ron's room, his eyes very very wide behind his glasses.  
  
Himself. Of course. Who better to implicate than himself? What if he told the courts that he'd put Sirius under some sort of spell, or fed him some sort of potion, or...  
  
Suddenly the possibilities seemed endless. How could Sirius be guilty of anything if he hadn't acted on his own will? They would *have* to let him off the hook. Now he just needed a believable antidote - a love potion, or maybe a charm that an average fifth year student had the capabilities to perform; something simple yet potent enough to be believable, something that Sirius could deny all knowledge of.  
  
Harry flung open the door to Ron's room with such force that it set the ghoul in the attic to howling - ignoring it, he closed himself in the tiny, vibrantly orange bedroom and threw himself into the chair at the desk, dragging the largest book that Hermione had sent him [entitled "A Comprehensive History Of Romantic Tradition in Magical Britain."] open before him and pouring through the index. He and Ron had both had a good laugh over the title of this particular volume when they'd opened Hermione's package; cracking jokes about stodgy old stuffers in a great library somewhere, compiling dry and straightforward facts on the birds and the bees into a stiff, awkward narrative. Now, Harry was ready to kiss the author right on the mouth, if there was material on love potions between it's covers.  
  
But there turned out to be nothing at all about love potions or enchantments in A Comprehensive History of Romantic Tradition in Magical Britain, and Harry found himself questioning just how comprehensive it really was. He was far from discouraged, however; he would head straight to Diagon Alley as soon as he could, and pick up every book on love charms and potions that Flourish and Blotts had in stock. Harry shoved the weighty codec off of the desk and back into the corner with their school books and made haste downstairs to tell Ron about his new plan.  
  
But the reaction he got from his best friend, when he caught up with him on the hillside behind the house and told him his plan, was not the one that he wanted.  
  
"Harry, the might send you to Azkaban! The Ministry's really strict about love potions and the like; you can mix one up for your girlfriend, sure, but if you give someone a really strong one without telling them what it is; well, Mum knew a woman who's husband was going to leave her, so she brewed up some Adoration Ale and poured it into his hard cider bottles - only her elderly mother got into it one night, not knowing what it was, and the whole thing ended up with some sordid affair with the post owl, that's how they caught her..." Ron, Fred, and George had been on their way to play Quidditch in the meadow at the top of the hill; he'd lagged behind with Harry, listening, but now he stopped outright on the hillside, his broom forgotten in his hand.  
  
Harry was torn between amusement at the idea of an old lady making improper advances on a post owl, and bitter resentment that Ron was against him. The truth was that he hadn't even considered what the consequences for himself might be, if he played the decoy to get Sirius off the hook. With more irritation than he meant to voice, he said, "Well I'm not some witchy old lady brewing up potions for her estranged husband; Sirius can just say that he didn't know, but it'll be up to him to press charges, then won't it?"  
  
"I don't know... it's the Ministry that's brought the charges against Sirius--"  
  
"But that's the *point*, Ron; the charges are against Sirius, not me. Even if they do decide to convict me, they'll have to make a brand new case of it--"  
  
"--And what if they do that?" Ron asked quietly. Harry's eyes darkened.  
  
"Then I'll have brought it on myself, won't I? Look, Ron, I'm not asking *you* to lie for us..." Harry broke off, sighed heavily. Ron had gone silent, and he was chewing on his lower lip, his pale, freckled complexion tinted with the blue of twilight. Finally, he said;  
  
"You're really in love, aren't you? I mean, I knew you two loved eachother," Ron paused, looked at Harry carefully, "... but you're really *in* it." He looked slightly awed, and Harry didn't like the sudden feeling of distance that had arisen inside of him. Sitting down on the grass, he sighed again.  
  
"Listen... I know that, when this all started," -- Harry waved his hand vaguely, to indicate the parameters of 'all this' as the concept of he and Sirius as lovers -- "that you and Hermione weren't exactly fans of the idea..."  
  
Ron had sat down beside him, laying his broomstick tenderly in the grass by his feet; now he made a small, dismissive gesture. "It was... weird, at first. We just didn't know what to think, that's all. I'll admit it, I was a little nervous that you two'd be all... y'know, *close* and stuff around us--" Harry did an applaudable job of holding back a chuckle at Ron's awkwardness "-- but that didn't happen, and you know we adore Sirius. We got used to the idea pretty fast."  
  
Harry felt a surge of fondness for his two best friends, in that moment. Neither of them had ever even addressed the fact that Sirius was a man. Ron had never acted the least bit uncomfortable around him after the fact, though he'd seemed somewhat relieved to catch Harry staring quite a bit longer than necessary at Cho in the hallways when they'd returned to school.   
  
Another moment of silence passed between them, with Harry gazing up at the falling night sky and Ron idly smoothing the twigs of his broom tail. There seemed to be lots more to say, but for some reason, Harry felt no compulsion to say any of it. It was Ron who finally broke the stillness by saying;  
  
"Fred and George must think we've fallen into a gnome hole or something…"  
  
Harry chuckled, and the two of them climbed to their feet. Before they'd made it another five paces, however, Mrs. Weasley's voice came ringing up the hillside behind them.  
  
"Harry! You've someone here to see you!"  
  
The two of the exchanged a long, confused look before Ron said "I'm coming with you," and the two of them turned 'round and set back for the house.  
  
Mrs. Weasley was waiting at the back door for them. She'd taken off her apron, and when they got close enough she hurried them with a quick little gesture. "It's your lawyer, Harry," she said when they reached the threshold.  
  
"I have a lawyer?" said Harry, now thoroughly puzzled.  
  
He liked the looks of the man standing in the living room at once. For one thing, he was shorter than Harry - a merit that very few people over the age of twelve earned. For another thing, he was young. His face was a paradoxical blend of boyish charm and chiseled beauty, and he had very clear, light blue eyes that were both keen and honest. They reminded Harry strongly of Dumbledore's eyes; though of an icier shade, and the spectacles squared, not moon shaped, they had the same sharp sparkle; the same vague and fleeting shadows of great power behind them. Harry had the odd feeling that, somehow, those eyes had been watching him before he'd even made it through the doorway and come into view. The sensation was slightly eerie, but then the man smiled one of the most charming smiles that Harry had ever seen, and came 'round the couch to offer a dark gloved hand to him.  
  
"Harry Potter; Jonathan Dove, at your service - I've been appointed as your godfather's defense attorney. I must say that it's quite an honor to meet you at last; as you're surely used to hearing, I've heard quite a bit about you."  
  
Infallibly polite, yet the words rolled in an easy, natural cadence from his tongue, and his manner was warm and approachable. Harry shook his hand, and meant it.   
  
"I didn't think they'd let Sirius have an attorney, honestly," he said as they sat down.   
  
"Well, I'll be honest with you - I asked for this case. If I hadn't, they might not have appointed anyone to it."  
  
"Is that legal?" Harry asked.  
  
The corner of Dove's mouth hitched in something between a smirk and a smile. "One thing I've learned as a lawyer? Anything is legal, if you shine *just* the right light on it."  
  
Harry couldn't help but smile. Dove lit a cigarette, tapped it gracefully in an ashtray, and cracked open the black leather briefcase at his feet, pulling out a sheaf of papers. "Well, we should probably get right to it; the faster we do, the faster we'll have him out of there." He looked straight at Harry then. "I'm going to need your help, though, Harry. Some things that I ask you may be very personal, and I wish I could tell you that you don't have to answer if you don't feel comfortable; but everything that you tell me is going to be helpful, if not vital, to freeing your godfather. You may not see the correlation, right away, but you've got to trust me."   
  
The frankness and respect with which he spoke infused Harry with confidence; after the nightmare that had been his trip to St Mungo's, the last thing he wanted was to answer anymore personal questions, but somehow he felt in that moment as though he could tell Dove anything and everything. He had a *reason* to tell him everything. This man was not prying into his life, he was offering help. *This* was an ally.  
  
"I'll tell you whatever you need to know. But can I ask you something, first?"  
  
"You just have. However, you may ask me something else, if you wish."   
  
Jonathan Dove's blue eyes sparkled over the rims of his glasses as he smiled; and now Harry didn't really need to ask at all, but he did so anyway.  
  
"Are you related to Dumbledore?"  
  
Dove's smile widened, and he chuckled softly, taking one more drag of his cigarette and putting it out before it was half finished. "I should have known that you would ask that. You're his favorite student of the last five decades, of course you would notice. Albus Dumbledore is my great uncle."  
  
"So your grandfather's Aberforth?" Harry asked without really meaning to, remembering something that Dumbledore had once told him about his brother and a scandalous charm on a goat. For a moment he was afraid that the question would somehow offend Dove; but to his surprise, the blue-eyed man burst into laughter.  
  
"Oh Merlin's Beard, no! I never had the… er… pleasure of meeting great-uncle Aberforth, but I hear he's quite a piece of work; the prodigal son, as Albus was the favorite. My grandfather, Abner, was the youngest, and the dreamer of the family; a hopeless poet who spent his entire life writing limericks. Never earned a knut for them, either." Dove chuckled softly, ran a hand through his hair with an easy smile. "We've got quite an eclectic family, really - I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that you've heard a bit about us, as well."  
  
It felt good to be on equal footing with Dove; to share a laugh with him along with the invaluable common bond of Dumbledore. For a moment, Harry wanted to forget about the purpose of their meeting and simply talk with Dove for awhile, get to know him, befriend him. But Dove was sifting through the sheafs of parchment which he'd drawn out of his briefcase - all formal-looking documents, stamped with the Ministry's seal. After a moment he set these down on the end table, removed a fresh scroll and a quik-quill note taker, and spread these out on the coffee table. Harry eyed the acid green quill dubiously - Rita Skeeter'd had one of these, and he didn't exactly trust them…  
  
As if Dove was reading his mind, he turned the scroll towards Harry so that he would be able to read every word of what was written, and said "Alright, let's get to it then, shall we?" As the words left his lips, the quill scrawled them in a looping, graceful hand across the parchment, in very dark red ink. Word for word. Harry looked up at the lawyer, took a deep breath, and asked,  
  
"What do you need me to tell you?"  
  
His own words had appeared below Jonathan's, and Harry was quite startled to see that they were written in his own handwriting, the ink a lighter shade of red than before. He didn't have time to ponder this for very long, however.  
  
"Everything. Let's start with your life with your Aunt and Uncle. What was it like?"  
  
Harry's stomach turned. He didn't want to think about the Dursleys now - or ever again, for that matter. But Dove had already told him that if he wanted to help free Sirius, he'd have to speak up. He picked a spot on the wall behind Dove, and focused his eyes on it as he said,  
  
"Dreadful, if you must know. They never liked me. They hate wizards, and magic, and anything that they don't understand, really."  
  
"I see. *Those* sort of muggles. Did you ever try to run away?"  
  
"I didn't have anywhere to go," said Harry evenly.  
  
"I know these are things you'd rather not speak of, Harry, but think of it like this - everything bad that you can tell me about your guardians before Sirius will make him look the better. If your Aunt and Uncle treated you badly, I need to know the details."  
  
"Jona-er, Mr. Dove?"  
  
"Oh, do call me Jonathan."  
  
Harry shifted his weight. "Well, you see… before you got here I'd been thinking, and I wondered - what if we told the court that I gave Sirius some sort of potion, or put a charm on him… convince them that I *forced* him to, well.."  
  
"Sleep with you? Then that's not statutory rape, Harry, that's rape outright. You'd be headed to Azkaban for 10-12 years even if I plea bargained you down to the lowest possible sentence. Plus they'd want physical proof - send medics over him with a fine tooth comb, test for any potions or charms, anyway. It's a good thought, but I'm afraid it really isn't going to work. What I'm planning on doing is playing the heartstrings of the Wizangamot. We want them to have sympathy for you."  
  
"What about sympathy for Sirius?"  
  
Dove smiled bitterly. "Not going to happen, I'm afraid. Most people have their minds made up about him - but you're something altogether different, Harry. I wouldn't blame you for being upset by what I'm about to tell you; but I've already spoken to Sirius, and-"  
  
Harry heart jumped in his chest; nearly rising from his chair, he interjected, "You've spoke with Sirius? You've seen him? Is he alright? How does he look? They haven't hurt him, have they? How long ago did-"  
  
Jonathan raised both a hand and his chin to cut Harry off.  
  
"I have. He's doing amazingly well - the Dementors have little to no effect on him. He's angry as the devil, yes, but he's not hurt, and you don't need to fear for his safety. You're the only thing that he's worried for, right now; but you ought to know that we've had a very long and in-depth discussion regarding the nature his relationship with you, including how it came to be, and what happened when you were ten years old…"  
  
The lawyer's words trailed off, for Harry was sitting stock still in his chair, staring at Dove with undisguised horror. He knew. He knew about the rape, and the nightmares, and everything. He knew that Harry was tainted, dirty, knew that awful, awful secret…  
  
He couldn't look at Jonathan, anymore. Turning his face away, Harry drew his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. He'd thought that Dove could like him, respect him - but how could you respect someone, once you knew something like that about them? When Jonathan looked at him, he saw a Victim; something stripped and broken and not to be touched. He couldn't talk to this man, now; this noble, pristine creature who sat across from him…  
  
"I'm sorry," Harry whispered. "I can't do this."  
  
"Would you like to know why I became a lawyer, Harry?"  
  
He had not expected the question, and Harry glanced at Dove momentarily over the tops of his own knees. The blue eyes looking back at him were not pitying, or disgusted, but sincere. Jonathan Dove had the steady, open gaze of a man who had nothing to hide - and the entire time that he spoke, he looked at Harry. He did not flinch, or turn away, or show the slightest sign of shame when he said;  
  
"When I was younger, the same thing happened to me. A whole pack of people, I never saw them coming. I was only eight years old, and I didn't really know what was happening - I just knew that it hurt, and that I hated it, and that I hated *them*, whoever they were. They left me for dead in Knockturn Alley, and I spent weeks in St. Mungo's. I wouldn't speak to anyone, wouldn't tell them what had happened to me, wouldn't let anyone near me that I didn't know and trust. It was Hell, Harry. My parents hired a lawyer, and he came and spoke with me, and I didn't want to speak to him. I hated him. They had to feed me Veritaserum to make me talk.  
  
"But then the court date came. They didn't make me testify - in fact I didn't even have to enter the courtroom. But I remember standing outside of it with my father, and great-uncle Albus, waiting for the verdict. I didn't even know that they'd found the people who'd raped me. But then my lawyer came out, and he said to me 'You don't have to worry, anymore. They're all going to Azkaban. They won't come back for you.' That man gave my life back to me, just like that - and right then and there, I decided that when I grew up, I was going to be a lawyer just like him, and put other people's nightmares to rest for them."  
  
That smooth, cultured voice gave way to no hitch or fault, no hesitation. Dove spoke not to the floor, or the wall, but directly to Harry - and when he had finished, he simply lit another cigarette, sat back in his chair, and let his words sink in. Harry's head was reeling.  
  
Jonathan Dove was a Victim, too. This strong and dignified creature before him had been hurt just like him, and yet here he sat - shameless, remorseless, utterly composed. And then he said "I would be very surprised, indeed, Harry, if anything that I have just said to you makes you think the less of me. Please understand that I do not think the less of you for what your godfather has disclosed to me; and nothing that you say in confidence to me shall do so, either."  
  
Harry looked up at him. They were equals, again - moreso than Harry had ever imagined at the beginning of their meeting. This man knew, and thought no less of him. A weight had lifted from Harry's shoulders - a weight that he had carried for five long years, a weight that only Sirius had ever been able to carry for him before. There was nothing hide. Dove already knew; and even more, he understood. He had seen it, felt it, and lived through all of it himself.   
  
A strange mix of emotions washed over Harry, then; gratitude, bitterness, and a sense of wisdom far beyond his years. He looked Jonathan straight in the eyes, and asked him,  
  
"How many of them did you?"  
  
"Twelve." It was as though Dove had been expecting the unsettlingly blunt question, though Harry did not even really know why he had asked it. The response was clean and immediate, like the parry of a verbal rapier, and Dove's eyes were locked on his now. "Two of them came back for seconds."  
  
"Touché," Harry said with a humorless smile, feeling as though some final bond had been sealed between Dove and himself.  
  
Dove's smile spread into a close-lipped yet catlike grin. "I see, more and more, why you are my great-uncle's favorite."  
  
Harry settled back in his chair, glanced over his shoulder to make sure that the living room door was closed, and said "Well, I suppose we should start with the time that Uncle Vernon locked me in the tool shed for three days when I was six…"  
  
*** 


	6. To Hell and To London

Chapter VI : To Hell and To London  
  
[ colloquial title : moning has broken ]  
  
Author's Notes : Sorry for the delay -- this chapter simply didn't want to be written, and I wasn't going to post it until it was up to par.   
  
***  
  
Jonathan Dove's owl came very early in the morning; it rapped sharply at the windowpane with it's beak until Harry, who was a much lighter sleeper than Ron, woke up and climbed over his best friend to open the bedroom window and let him in. Harry untied the roll of parchment from the bird's leg and flopped down on a gaudy orange beanbag chair in the corner, unrolling it with an unsuppressed yawn.   
  
The owl had come every day for the past two weeks at just about the same time, and he was used to it. Dove's morning messages were worth waking up before dawn for; ever since their first meeting, they'd kept up a detailed correspondence. Harry had found that it was easier to pour out his life onto paper than into words. He never read over what he wrote to Jonathan; simply folded it, sealed it, and let go of it.   
  
In a way, Dove had become a bit like his diary. Before leaving the Weasley residence two weeks ago, the lawyer had bestowed an armful of parchment and a brand new quill on him -- telling him that anything and everything he could possibly write down for him would be appreciated.  
  
"You never know there the nuts and bolts for a case lie; it's usually the little things that people don't think are important that end up screwing the whole thing together, in the end. If you feel it, write it. If you remember it, write it. Don't think too hard, just write; I'll sort out what I need."  
  
And so Harry - who had never been much of a writer -- had done just this; dubiously, at first, but the more he wrote the easier he found it to do so. He would lie awake in the camp bed long after Ron had fallen asleep, writing by wand light while his best friend snored across the room. His thoughts seemed to sort themselves out more easily under the cover of darkness, and Harry found that he felt lighter after getting them out of his head and onto the parchment. The memories didn't swim around in his head, after. They left him alone for a while, sent off into the night with Hedwig and out of his hands, now. When he curled up to sleep, afterward, the nightmares rarely followed him.  
  
But even though he slept quite well, Harry always woke up with a hollow, empty feeling in his chest at the thought of another day without Sirius. The predawn owl post fed his desperate craving for news, for progress, for light at the end of the tunnel. Dove's letters not only included every detail that the lawyer could give him, but a decent amount of personal correspondence as well. Dove told Harry more about his family, and his own years at Hogwarts as well. He'd been in Slytherin; which had greatly surprised Harry at first, but made perfect sense when he thought about it - Dove was, indeed, a master of getting what he wanted, however he had to do it. That, indeed, was his job as a lawyer; it was no wonder that he did it so well.  
  
"Slytherins are made to be lawyers, journalists, or spies," Jonathan had joked in one of his letters. "Quite seldom will you find the likes of a Slytherin marriage counselor."  
  
Harry shoved his glasses onto his nose, now, scanning Dove's most recent correspondence in the dim gray light seeping through the window. It was much shorter than usual, and the fine, looping handwriting that had become so familiar to Harry's eyes seemed rushed. Settling back in his seat, he began to read in earnest:  
  
'Harry,  
  
'I received some news this evening that has forced me to rethink everything.  
  
'Lucius Malfoy will preside as Inquisitor on behalf of the Ministry at Sirius's trial.  
  
'The decision was made today by the Ministry, and though I have not had the chance to speak to who have made it, I am quite sure that it is nonnegotiable. Malfoy subsidizes more Ministry projects than I can count on my fingers, and I have no doubt in my mind that he paid more than a fair sum to get his hand in the boiling pot on this one.   
  
'This changes everything.  
  
'Subsequently, I have been forced to make a few hard pressed decisions of my own concerning Sirius's case. There is no room for a margin, anymore; Malfoy will pull out all the stops, I'm sure, which means that I'm going to have to as well.   
  
'I didn't want to have to do this, Harry - but I'm afraid that I need to put you on the stand. I'll need it all from your own mouth, in front of the jury, or I am quite positive that Malfoy will manage to make Sirius out like a monster. There's only one person in the world who can testify on his behalf and make a difference, and that's you. I'm sick of saying this myself, but you're just going to have to trust me.  
  
'I would like very much to meet with you in London the day before the trial, to tie up all the loose ends and get you ready for the stand. I'll answer all of your questions then -- but please feel free to write to me with any express concerns before then. The trial has been set for Thursday, August 8th, as you are well aware already. I can arrange for your transportation to London the morning of the 7th, and you needn't worry about a place to stay. Send a reply back with Lionel if he's bothered to stay for breakfast.  
  
'Regards,  
  
Jonathan'  
  
Harry felt as though someone had frozen his insides solid, then shattered them with a mallet. He stared at the letter for a good long time; not rereading, just looking, letting the letters and the words blur together on the page, then separate themselves neatly once again when he finally blinked.  
  
Dove's handsome tawny screech owl was still picking through the remains in Hedwig's feed trough; hastily, Harry scribbled a reply on the nearest piece of parchment in a numb, shaky hand;  
  
'Jonathan,  
  
I can get to London. See you then.  
  
- Harry'  
  
Feeling very numb, he attached the scrap of parchment to Lionel's leg and watched numbly as the owl took off into the pre dawn stillness once again. Today was Saturday, August 3rd. In less than a week, it was his word against Malfoys. In less than a week, Sirius's fate would be thrown right into his hands. The bottom of his stomach seemed to have dropped out, and the pit that replaced it was bottomless.   
  
Folding Dove's letter carefully and setting it on the night stand, Harry crouched down beside Ron's bed and shook his best friend by the shoulder.  
  
"Pssst. Ron. Wake up, will you?"  
  
"Huhwhahmmm?" said Ron cleverly, rolling over lazily and cracking an eye at Harry. "Whatimeisih?"  
  
"Early. Listen, Ron - I've just received a letter from Jonathan."  
  
Ron rolled over again, drew the quilts up over his head. "You get those nearly every morning. Wake me when breakfast's on, eh?"  
  
Harry pulled the blankets patiently away from his best friend's face. "This one's different. Important. He wants me to testify at Sirius's hearing."  
  
Ron sat up as though a bucket of cold water had been thrown over him. Eyes wide, he gaped at Harry in the meager light. "What? Testify? I thought you weren't even supposed to *go*."  
  
Harry took a seat at the end of Ron's bed and jerked his chin towards the nightstand to indicate the letter. "I wasn't. That's why we've spent the past two weeks planning how to go anyway. Now I almost wish we hadn't."  
  
"Nonsense," said Ron. "This is the best thing that could have happened! Now not only do you get to be there for Sirius, you get to defend him with your own mouth! I mean, don't get me wrong - Jonathan's doing a splendid job, we all know that -- but Harry, this is our *chance*!"  
  
Harry, who still hadn't caught Ron's usually contagious enthusiasm and who still wasn't feeling so keen about the whole idea, only forced a smile and said, "Wish I could send Hermione in my stead. Now *she'd* know what to say."  
  
"It's not like giving a speech, Harry," Ron said, reaching for Dove's letter. "Jonathan's asking the questions. He'll set you up perfectly. All you have to do is answer him. I'm sure he'll make you make Sirius look like an angel."  
  
"You forgot about Lucius."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Lucius. Go on. Read."  
  
And read Ron did -- his eyes growing progressively wider until he reached the end and looked up at Harry, open mouthed.  
  
"But--"  
  
"But were bloody nailed, Ron. Jonathan can't save me during Lucius's cross examination. It'll be me, and him, and he's going to do everything in his power to ruin this."  
  
Ron grew quiet for a moment, nibbling on his lower lip. For a moment the silence grew thick with their thoughts, until Pig came shooting through the open window, hooting excitedly and carrying a dead rat in his beak.  
  
"Oh for chrissakes, Pig! Eat it somewhere else!" Ron snapped, swatting at the hyperactive ball of feathers as it tried to drop the rat in his lap. Harry sighed and leaned back against a bedpost, watched dawn break over The Burrow through the window. Downstairs, the tea kettle was whistling. No doubt Mrs. Weasley had just risen. Breakfast would be cooking before they knew it.   
  
The quiet, predawn stillness was over. Morning had broken; shattering into a thousand pieces that Harry would spend yet another day pasting back together into the semblance of normal routine. With another heavy sigh, he rose from the end of the bed, picking up the dead rat by it's tail and tossing it through the window as Ron continued to scuffle with Pig.  
  
"Wax the bird, mate -- we might as well help your Mum with breakfast."  
  
"And we'll write to Hermione again, as soon as we've finished," Ron said decisively as they clambered down the rickety staircase.   
  
But writing to Hermione didn't seem to be the answer, anymore. Hermione couldn't help Sirius, now. No one could.  
  
Except him.  
  
*** 


End file.
